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Tag Archives: Baptism

Thanks as always to those who send me questions. For those that think of questions after Wednesday, please do still send them. I always do the questions last, so I can always record a response and tack it on to the end of the audio or I can always deal with them during the next Bible Study Session.

During the Christological and Pneumatological controversies of the 4th century, one of the most compelling arguments for the Orthodox understanding of the Trinity came from the rite of baptism. It should come as no surprise, then, that St. Ambrose cites the Great Commission in the thirteenth chapter of the first book of his treatise On the Holy Spirit:

Who, then, would dare to deny the oneness of Name, when he sees the oneness of the working. But why should I maintain the unity of the Name by arguments, when there is the plain testimony of the Divine Voice that the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one? For it is written: ‘Go, baptize all nations in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matt. 28:19). He said, ‘in the Name,’ not ‘in the Names.’ So, then, the Name of the Father is not one, that of the Son another, and that of the Holy Spirit another, for God is one; the Names are not more than one, for there are not two Gods, or three Gods.

The unity signified by the Name of the Trinity also is the answer to the promise Christ give the Disciples in Matthew 28:20 (the final verse of the Gospel pericope read at Baptism):

Lo, I am whith you until the end of the age.

Since Orthodox Christians are sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself, Christ is present always through His unity with the Holy Spirit in every Orthodox Christian. Amen.

In the sixth chapter of the first book of On the Holy Spirit by St. Ambrose, there is an interesting witness to the rite of baptism:

There are, however, many who, because we are baptized with water and the Spirit, think that there is no difference in the offices of water and the Spirit, and therefore think that they do not differ in nature. Nor do they observe that we are buried in the element of water that we may rise again renewed by the Spirit. For in the water is the representation of death, in the Spirit is the pledge of life, that the body of sin may die through the water, which encloses the body as it were in a kind of tomb, that we, by the power of the Spirit, may be renewed from the death of sin, being born again in God.

There are three things I’d like to highlight about this passage:

Firstly, though he doesn’t quote it, St. Ambrose does a marvelous job of explaining St. Paul’s claim in Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

In baptism, our fallen selves are crucified and buried in the tomb of water. When we are sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are united to the humanity that sits at the right hand of the Father in perfect communion with the Holy Spirit — Christ. Through the baptismal rite we have been created anew in the image of Christ Himself, no longer of the world but of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Secondly, St. Ambrose implies that baptism by water and baptism by the Spirit are two separate actions within the baptismal rite. This is confirmed a few paragraphs later:

Do we live in the water or in the Spirit? Are we sealed in the water or in the Spirit? For in Him we live and He Himself is the earnest of our inheritance, as the Apostle says, writing to the Ephesians: ‘In Whom believing ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, Who is an earnest of our inheritance’ (Eph. 1:13,14). So we were sealed by the Holy Spirit, not by nature, but by God, for it is written: ‘He Who anointed us is God, Who also sealed us, and gave the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts’ (2 Cor. 1:21) . . . For although we were visibly sealed in our bodies, we are in truth sealed in our hearts, that the Holy Spirit may portray in us the likeness of the heavenly image.

This appears to be a witness to the Orthodox practice of chrismation — when Orthodox Christians are anointed with myrrh and sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself at their baptism. In Western Christendom, this practice was separated from the baptismal rite and became known as confirmation, and in process, lost its original liturgical significance.

Finally, note how this act of chrismation — sealing — is ontological in nature (ontology means the study of being — from the Greek ὄντος meaning that which is and-λογία meaning study). This isn’t a life-style choice or something limited to reason and rational thought. It is a radical change in our very being. Once sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are no longer beings of the fallen world — we are the children of God who bring with them the Kingdom of Heaven, in the presence of the Holy Spirit, everywhere we go. Amen.

I plan to spend a few days on Chapter 5 of On the Holy Spirit by St. Ambrose because it is beautiful. This beauty has made me realize something that I should have done long before today — the works of St. Ambrose can be found online here. Chapter 5 of On the Holy Spirit can be found here.

In the first paragraph of Chapter 5, St. Ambrose writes:

For as we are children through the Spirit, because ‘God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father; so that thou art now not a servant but a son’ (Gal 4:6, 7;) in like manner, also, every creature is waiting for the revelation of the sons of God, whom in truth the grace of the Holy Spirit made sons of God. Therefore, also, every creature itself shall be changed by the revelation of the grace of the Spirit, ‘and shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God’ (Rom 8:19, 21)

Note the implication of the role of humanity in creation: all of creation is waiting for the revelation of God through us. The Holy Spirit descends upon us at the baptismal rite where Orthodox Christians are sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself. In us, this grace and sanctification can be revealed in the way we use and interact with creation. We may either use what has been given to us by God to give glory to God — to give creation back to God and therefore deliver it from the bondage of corruption — or we can shirk our role within creation and allow it to wallow in its subjugation to sin.

To put this another way, we are made in the image and likeness of God. Since He is the Creator of all things, we are invited by Him to be co-creators. This can be seen in Genesis 2:19 when God invites Adam to name all the creatures of the earth. There is a reason why wheat and grapes do not become the Body and Blood of Christ. These are given to us by God. We rework them with our hands — we co-create. Wheat becomes bread. Grapes become wine. These are offered to God and they are sanctified and changed by the Holy Spirit through our participation in God’s salvific work.

What is important to understand, and what St. Ambrose makes clear, is that it is not just humanity, nor just wheat and grapes that are capable of being sanctified. Christ came to save all creation. We, therefore, are tasked with sanctifying all that which we touch and encounter. God is revealed to all creation through the sons of God, forged and created by the descent of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The story of Gideon and the dew upon the fleece from Judges 6:36-40 is strongly associated with the Incarnation of Christ in Orthodox Christian hymnody. From the First Canon of Christmas (Ode Four):

Like rain upon a fleece, You came down into the Virginal womb, O Christ, and like drops that fall upon the earth.

From the Canon of the Annunciation (Ode Four):

The Word of the Father shall descend upon you like rain upon a fleece, even as it has seemed good to Him.

I think, however, that Ambrose is also using this image of water to suggest an association with baptism:

There is also a certain water which we put into the basin of our soul, water from the fleece and from the Book of Judges; water, too, from the Book of Psalms.* It is the water of the message from heaven.

*[The Lord] leads me beside still waters — Psalm 22 (23):2

Of course, we strongly associate baptism with the descent of the Holy Spirit (from the Blessing of the Baptismal Water):

Will You also now, Loving King, be present through the descent of Your Holy Spirit and sanctify this water.

Thus, St. Ambrose connects the Incarnation with both the Holy Spirit (who descended upon the Virgin Mary) and baptism (when the Holy Spirit descends upon the water). In this light, it is entirely appropriate to pray:

Let, then, this water, O Lord Jesus, come into my soul, into my flesh, that through the moisture of this rain the valleys of our minds and the fields of our hearts may grow green. May the drops from Thee come upon me, shedding forth grace and immortality. Wash the steps of my mind that I may not sin again. Wash the heel, of my soul, that I may be able to efface the curse, that I feel not the serpent’s bite on the foot of my soul, but, as Thou Thyself hast bidden those who follow Thee, may tread on serpents and scorpions with uninjured foot. Thou hast redeemed the world, redeem the soul of a single sinner.

In other words, it is through the descent of the Holy Spirit that our soul and our very flesh has access to the salvation granted by the Incarnation of Christ — in whom the Protoevangelium (first good news) of Genesis 3:15 becomes flesh:

I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman [Eve], and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall be on guard for His heel.

This coming Sunday is the Synaxis of the Three Hierarchs. Around the year AD 1100 there was a raging argument plaguing the Orthodox Church — who was the greatest, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian or St. John Chrysostom? This strife was so contentious that the three saints appeared to St. John Mauropous, Bishop of Euchita (celebrated on October 5) who was a great hymnographer. Explaining that the glory they have at the throne of God is equal, they asked him to compose a common service for them in order to end the disputes. We have celebrated this service on January 30 since.

Thus, while reading the Epistle (Hebrews 13:7-16) and the Gospel Reading (Mathew 5:14-19) we tried to place them in context of this feast as well as the events of the readings themselves and our own lives.

The verse we spent the most time on was Hebrews 13:9:

Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings; for it is well that the heart be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited their adherents.

We asked the question, “What are diverse and strange teachings?” To understand this, we need to look at verse 8:

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.

In other words, the truth that was taught to the Apostles is the same that was passed down from generation to generation down to us. The means by which Christ saves us has not changed. The reality of Christ Incarnate — both God and man — the crucifixion, and the resurrection has not changed. So, what we know about God, Christ and how we are saved has not changed throughout the ages. We might have clarified these truths, depending upon the context that the Church found Herself, but these basic truths have not changed.

Diverse and strange teachings call into question either what we know about God (and therefore Christ) or about how we are saved:

In St. Paul’s time, there were those who insisted that fasting laws and getting circumcised were necessary for salvation. This calls into question how we are saved. If fasting laws and circumcision are necessary, then Christ’s saving passion is somehow incomplete.

In the time of the Three Hierarchs, there was a teacher named Arius who taught that there was a time when the Son was not. He called into question what we know about Christ, God and the Trinity. If there was a time when the Son was not, then He is part of creation and of a fundamentally different essence than God the Father. As such, uniting ourselves to Christ would do us little good, since we are already part of creation. Only in being of one essence with the Father does uniting ourselves to Christ save.

In our own time, there is the phenomenon of the Old-Calendarists. When various Orthodox Churches (Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Poland and Bulgaria) started to switch to the revised Julian Calendar (which uses the Gregorian Calendar for fixed feasts) in 1924 (the last in 1963), there were those who refused to make the switch. These Old Calendarists broke communion with the Orthodox Church in order to form their own communion. In other words, they follow in the footsteps of the Judaizers of St. Paul’s time. They see the use of the Julian Calendar as necessary to salvation, calling into question the completeness of Christ’s passion.

The verse from the Gospel that we focused on was verse 18:

For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

The iota and the dot are the smallest of letters and strokes in the Greek alphabet. Thus, Christ is claiming that the law must be fulfilled completely. If we read some of the hymns from January 1 we see the Church declaring that Christ fulfills the Law:

The supremely good God was not ashamed to be circumcised in the flesh; but for our salvation He offered Himself as a type and example to all. For the Author of the Law fulfills the precepts of the Law and the things the prophets preached of Him — Stichera of Vespers for the Circumcision in the Flesh of Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ

The Law reveals our sin, because fallen humanity is incapable of fulfilling the Law. Christ, being both God and man, is sinless. Therefore He is capable of perfectly fulfilling the Law — abolishing that which separates humanity from God. This He accomplishes for our sake. When we are baptized we are said to put on Christ (cf. Ga;. 3:27). Thus, the Law is fulfilled in us by Christ Himself. The Law is not the means of our salvation, Christ is.

Still in the midst of celebrating Theophany, it was difficult to see this Sunday’s Epistle Reading (Colossians 3:4-11) and Gospel Reading (Luke 17:12-19) outside of this context. In fact, St. Paul seems to be specifically refer to Baptism in verses 9-10:

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

The old nature refers to the reality that each of us is born into the fallen world. When we are Baptized, we die to this old nature and put on Christ (cf. Galatians 3:27, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ”).

We couldn’t discuss this passage without making mention of one of my personal favorite verses in Scripture (Colossians 3:11):

Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.

I find myself quoting this often in context of discussions about equality (there is no more radical a statement of equality that this). Upon reflection, we realized that our current ethnic mishmash here in the U.S. is probably closer to the audience St. Paul was writing to — the Roman Empire — than we may imagine.

In terms of understanding the phrase “Christ is all, in all” we need to remember that as beings made in the image and likeness of God, we have a trinitarian existence. In other words, just as God is one in essence in three persons, so, too, are we of one essence and in many persons. Thus, when Christ took on our humanity, He affected all of humanity through our nature —Christ is all. Since we are also made in the image and likeness, Christ is also in all.

Following the theme of remembering Theophany, we recalled Christ’s first words after His baptism (read last week on the Sunday after Theophany), “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). When Christ told the ten lepers to present themselves to the priest (indicating that they were cleansed — the priest would confirm this and their re-integration into society), only one presented himself to the true High Priest — Christ Himself. In doing so he turned around (the literal meaning of repentance) — he repented and oriented himself to God. Being a Samaritan, he indicates that this action is possible for everyone (Christ is all, and in all). This act of repentance (and our participation in salvation) is confirmed by Christ’s words, “your faith has made you well.”

Again, this week was short and sweet given the time of year and the number of people traveling. For the first time in weeks, however, we did not spend the majority of our time on the Epistle (2 Tim 4:5-8).

We focused primarily on the verse “For I am already on the point of being sacrificed” (4:6). This was probably the last letter St. Paul wrote before his martyrdom. He was in prison and awaiting his death. Of interest is the word “sacrifice,” because in some translations in is rendered “poured out as a libation.” The sacrifice St. Paul is referring to is the drink sacrifice in the Temple where the priest would pour wine, water or oil over the burnt sacrifice at the end of the service in order to put out the fire. This Sunday is the Sunday before Theophany. It is thus a preparation for the Baptism of Christ and the revelation of God as Trinity. This image of St. Paul himself being poured out as a drink sacrifice brought us to mind of Baptism where we die to the world and are created anew in Christ.

The Gospel Reading is the first eight verses of Mark. We noted that the quote from Isaiah is not entirely from Isaiah: “A voice cries out from the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (40:3). The other half of the quote comes from Malachi, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way” (3:1).

Baptism was not a new practice in Judaism. It was used for purification purposes and even as a means for proselytes to enter Judaism. So, what John was doing out in the wilderness was not something strange and new; however, what he was saying was: “I have baptized you in water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

The question was asked: When did Christ first baptize humanity in the Holy Spirit? He certainly sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. He also breathed the Holy Spirit onto the Apostles (John 20:22). Was He not baptized in the Holy Spirit at Theophany? Were not we, whose humanity Christ took on to Himself, baptized in the Holy Spirit with Him? Did not God say He was well pleased by this reality (Matt. 3:17)? This reality was then made accessible to all of us through the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. Now we all may be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit Himself.

It was here that we found how these two readings spoke to each other. St. Paul writes:

Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. — 2 Tim 4:8.

At the Theophany, God reveals Himself as Trinity and Christ as God and Man. Those who love this appearing — we who accept God as Trinity and Christ as perfect God and perfect man — have a crown of righteousness prepared for us by the Lord.